WWE Has Released NXT Star Solomon Crowe

According to multiple reports (and his immediate removal from their website), NXT star Solomon Crowe has parted ways with WWE. The story going around is that Crowe requested and was granted his release on Monday.

Previously known for his work on the independents as “The New Horror” Sami Callihan, Crowe (real name Sam Johnston) joined WWE in May of 2013, making his in-ring debut at a live event the following August. After being relegated to live shows and pre-taping dark matches for almost two years, Crowe finally debuted as an onscreen NXT character on February 18, 2015, interrupting and defeating CJ Parker. He had his first televised NXT match on March 4, defeating Bull Dempsey. During his time offscreen, Crowe had developed a “hacker” character who used a tablet to control the arena lights and video feeds. By the time of his debut, the hacker aspects of his character were severely downplayed, and he just kinda became a weird guy who banged on the video screens and had color bars in his entrance video.

The 28-year-old performer had previously made a name for himself in promotions like Dragon Gate USA, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla and EVOLVE, so it’s a good bet he’ll be able to find whatever spot he’s looking for on the independents or abroad. Maybe he’ll end up following CJ Parker to New Japan Pro Wrestling and interrupt him there.

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What a waste. Sami was good enough to be right up there with the Zayn’s and the Owens’s and Balor’s of NXT. It boggles my mind that with his skill and his unique charisma that they couldn’t find anything to consistently do with him. I’m sure he’ll be happier being back on the independents but he deserved to be making the big WWE money for his talent.

It’s kind of sad, because if you watch his indy matches, it seemed like he had what it took to make something of himself in NXT. It seemed like they didn’t do him any favors, and I would imagine that’s why he wanted to go.

I would imagine he’ll go back to the indy circuit, and he’ll do fine there. Good luck to him.

Dude was just too weird to make it. He had a unique but not particularly marketable look, his mic skills were hit and miss and his ringwork was very much “garbage brawler/deathmatch wrestler took a few lessons on working regular matches.”

Kinda baffling, NXT is really starting to make it a bad habit to waste perfomers for no reason. I’m honestly not familiar with Crowe’s work outside NXT, and it’s hard to actually judge anyone’s actual talent or ability with as little exposure as he got. But there’s no arguing in my mind that actually using him for just about anything in NXT would have been a huge enhancement of the product.
NXT constantly suffers from the permanent drain of talent to the main roster, as well the inexperience of the greener performance.
So, even when or if it was already decided that they’ll never make the jump to RAW, why not keep reliably entertaining and capable performers like Crowe, CJ Parker or Sylvester LaForte around?

In this regard, NXT is working eerily similar to the main shows; this weird reluctance to actual fill screen time with the vast arsenal of entertaining characters at their disposal.

It’s really not that baffling, they stripped away everything that made him worth signing and he probably knew that as well as anyone. He can shine brighter elsewhere but when the WWE calls guess you got to take a punt.

The problem with Callihan was that the act that got him over on the indies could never translate to NXT/WWE. Indy crowds loved him because he was a smaller guy who wrestled like a huge brawler. He walked out of the curtain at 100mph and never stopped, continuing to take chair shots like a champ and sacrifice his body.

In NXT, that ceases to work. With a toned down style, the absence of blood, and against much larger competition (not to sound like Vince, but Callihan really is a smaller guy), Sami’s intensity comes off as a manic underdog. I really hope he manages to evolve his style (Japan would be great for him) and gets back to NXT in a year or so.

So why not set him up as the “hot tag” guy in a tag team? Match him up with a technical wrestler that can work the majority of the match, then have him come in guns a-blazing to jack the crowd up to the finish? Sounds like he can deliver short bursts and drop and/or eat a finisher with the best of them.

I love Sami Callihan, but Solomon Crowe… yeah, he wasn’t going anywhere, unfortunately. The company always seemed down on him, which is really surprising considering Finlay/Regal’s presence.

I think, and hope, that he gets back to EVOLVE (ironically being in WWE developmental developmental). Callihan-Thatcher, Callihan-Galloway, Callihan-Gulak, Callihan-Riddle. All compelling and fresh/refreshened match-ups. And of course, come down (well, up) to Georgia and give us Callihan-Rave. And there’s AAA freelancing, Callihan-Mesias could be an amazing match.

I’ve HEARD (emphasis: heard) that there’s a lot of roster unrest amidst the non-featured guys about pay and an inability to take outside dates. SC’s the third guy this year to ask for his release who was in that situation (Justin Gabriel/PJ Black & CJ Parker/Juice Robinson being the other two). It’s easy to understand. Take Heath Slater; well-regarded as a worker, though not as highly as Drew Mac. When McIntyre got his release, he immediately became a huge indie star working all over the world making more money than as a WWE jobber. He just main evented an indie show in Glasgow that had 5,000 people in attendance. Granted, ICW is a truly extraordinary case, but he’s clearly doing better now. Well, if you’re Heath, and you see Black & Galloway (two highly regarded ex-tag partners) doing that well, you won’t be that happy with your current station. And the Joe/Rhyno deals absolutely exacerbated that problem.

Trent Baretta’s doing pretty well for himself. Hell, even Curt Hawkins/Brian Myers, not someone with obvious indie appeal, is doing just as well financially as he was with the E. Chris Hero effectively quit NXT because he knew that he had issues staying in “WWE-level shape” and would make more money as an indie star than by hanging on for a shot in WWE.

I want to say that this is a trend that started when Laurinaitis took over as head of talent from JR, who would always let guys who weren’t featured go and make extra money or take a big payday if it was with a favored nation promotion. That seemed to come to a SCREECHING halt after Big Johnny came in, but I don’t have the results in front of me like I would with the current guys under the Triple H regime as head of talent.

It was a work. He retired the “CJ Parker” identity. He’s been on the last three NJPW tours, all over the card, as one of their role players for tags, teaming with nearly everyone who’s not a Bullet Club or CHAOS member. Yet to appear in a singles match, though. Basically a white utility version of YOSHI-HASHI.

This is a real shame. I saw him work a trios match at a live event recently with Marcus Louis and a big guy whose name I can’t readily recall, and he was working a “What about me? What about RAVEN?!” thing slouched in the corner. He had changed his look a big to wearing raccoon eye makeup and it seemed like there might be a nice little faction of New Weirdos forming. This is obviously just my opinion, but from what I saw in my experience live I think it could have turned into something I really liked, and subsequently got really stressed about when they got moved to the main roster and were immediately castrated.

Still though, it felt like something that could have been very cool, and it’s a shame we didn’t get to see it.